The international organisation Survival’s award to the “most racist article of the year” goes to the Paraguayan newspaper La Nacion. The honored article, published on 13 september 2007, says among other things:
“The Indians need to become civilized, to become Paraguayans, to forget this stupid idea of trying to preserve their backward, withered culture, and in so doing live like people who pay their taxes. Either that, or return to the depths of the jungle and carry on living with the animals. There’s no alternative. Paraguayans shouldn’t have to pay taxes to maintain an out-of-date way of living that can’t support itself.”
As Survival’s director Stephen Corryin points out, such media racism must be counter-fought not because of political correctness but because it has very real consequences for peoples’ livelihoods, land and, ultimately, their lives…
The Paraguayan racists are not alone; you can without difficulty find this kind of academic and accepted racism in the European media. In Sweden for instance citizens’ with immigrant background (by the white majority called: “svartskallar”) are used to read racist discourses about them in the daily press.
We could give such a prize every single week! I think I will start doing that. Help me monitoring the Swedish press and send me any racist article you find!
The winner of the Survival’s award will receive a certificate inscribed with a quotation from Lakota Sioux author Luther Standing Bear: ‘All the years of calling the Indian a savage has never made him one.’
Do you would like to pass on your congratulations to La Nacion? Call the paper +595 21 512 520 or email to their newsdesk: redaccion@lanacion.com.py
This is really absurd! Anyone who publishes something like this on a newspaper should be morally scarred for life. I’m in Germany and I really see how people have no tolerance with immigrants. The funny thing is that when Germans needed to flee from their country, they found home in Latin America. And nowadays, Germans step on Latin Americans in moral, political, and economical aspects. And I’m not even mentioning the Turks… Schande!
By the way, very interesting topic for a blog! I really admire people who are up for pointing fingers at society’s flaws. Here in Germany it is not different at all. Some people still carry on beliefs from the 30’s and 40’s, but because they are so politically incorrect to be verbalized, they keep on mumbling negative things about immigrants. But the funny and ironic thing is: Germans never complain. They keep on leading their lives accepting everything its government does. And, by the way, this government is far from providing the perfection they believe to live in. Visit: http://activepulse.wordpress.com
I came across your blog on Technorati. Nice site layout. I will stop by and read more soon.
Mike Harmon